And Now, 9 Black-Ass Books to Add to Your Reading List on Book Lovers Day

Black knowledge is power.

Did you even know National Book Lovers Day was a thing? We didn’t, but now that we do, we couldn’t let the day pass without supplying them quality reads. From Devin Allen’s gorgeous debut to Gucci Mane’s highly anticipated life story, here are nine new and forthcoming Black-ass books you’ll want to have in your bag for your AM commute.

‘A Beautiful Ghetto’ by Devin Allen

Source: Courtesy of Haymarket Books / Haymarket Books

When You Can Cop:

Right now, fam.

What Folks Are Saying:

“Allen’s work demonstrates a connection between resistance as a daily activity, a way of life in the ghetto, and resistance as a political act, as played out in the streets last spring. He documents resistance without judgment, without asking the usual questions that outsiders might: Is it justified? Is it effective? Is it legal? Resistance is represented not as a tactic, but as a fundamental aspect of life.” — TheWashington Post

‘Boondock Kollage: Stories from the Hip-Hop South’ by Regina Bradley

Source: Courtesy of Peter Lang / Peter Lang

When You Can Cop:

Uhm, you can be ordering now, High Key.

What Folks Are Saying:

“The intimacy and familiarity from which she writes southern black life not only humanizes us, it loves (on) us. Her carefully crafted prose gives a glimpse of black folk and black life in the post–Civil Rights black South, offering a mirror so we can see ourselves and our memories in line after line, page after page, story after story. You will carry her stories, her characters, and her characterizations with you. They feel like home. They feel like us. They feel like ours.” — Robin M. Boylorn, Associate Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication, The University of Alabama; author of Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience

‘Electric Arches’ by Eve L. Ewing

Source: Courtesy of Haymarket Books / Haymarket Books

When You Can Cop:

September 12, 2017

What Folks Are Saying:

“Reading Eve L. Ewing’s Electric Arches is such an awakening and active experience—this book time travels, makes myth, immerses, paints, opens pathways. This is a living and breathing document, memoir and map, guidebook and scroll. ‘Recall this,’ writes Ewing in ‘Shea Butter Manifesto,’ both as invitation and as spellbinding command. I’m awestruck by the rigor and intimacy of this book, by its insistent love for both black past and black future. Ewing leaves no unnamed ritual uncovered, no implicit idiom uncelebrated. This book is a gift, a visual and lyrical offering to be treasured as gospel.” — Morgan Parker, author of There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé

When You Can Cop:

February 20, 2018

What Folks Are Saying:

“Cooper may be the boldest young feminist writing today. Her critique is sharp, her love of Black people and Black culture is deep, and she will make you laugh out loud even as she kicks the clay feet out from under your cherished idols.” — Michael Eric Dyson

‘My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter’ by Aja Monet

Source: Courtesy of Haymarket Books / Haymarket Books

When You Can Cop:

Now.

What Folks Are Saying:

“Aja Monet ‘s poetry offers us textures of feeling and radical shifts of meaning that expand our capacity to envision and fight for new worlds. From Brooklyn, USA to Hebron, Occupied Palestine, we take a feminist journey through rage and serenity, through violence and love, through ancient times and imagined futures. This stunning volume reminds us that conflict and contradiction can produce hope and that poetry can orient us toward a future we may not yet realize we want.” — Angela Y. Davis

‘Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me’ by Janet Mock

Source: Atria Books / Charlotte Hamilton

When You Can Cop:

What Folks Are Saying:

“Redefining Realness is a riveting, emotional, crisply written testimony. I couldn’t put it down. I aspire to be as unflinchingly brave! Janet Mock’s story simultaneously embodies, complicates, and subverts the concept of American exceptionalism and self-creation.” — Laverne Cox

‘The Autobiography of Gucci Mane’ by Gucci Mane

Source: Courtesy of Simon & Schuster / Simon & Schuster

When You Can Cop:

September 19, 2017

What Folks Are Saying:

“In his extraordinary autobiography, the legend takes us to his roots in Alabama, the streets of East Atlanta, the trap house, and the studio where he found his voice as a peerless rapper. He reflects on his inimitable career and in the process confronts his dark past—years behind bars, the murder charge, drug addiction, career highs and lows—the making of a trap god. It is one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of music.” — Amazon

‘We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates

When You Can Cop:

January 16, 2018

What Folks Are Saying:

“Patrisse Cullors grew up as a child of this war—a drug war that aimed to destroy families like hers, communities like hers, places she called home. asha bandele tells the story beautifully, sharing the often razor-sharp details of the police and prisons that punctuated Patrisse’s young life with unflinching honesty and deep insight. This remarkable book reveals what inspired Patrisse’s visionary and courageous activism and forces us to face the consequence of the choices our nation made when we criminalized a generation. This book is a must-read for all of us.?” — Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow